Ordinary Time
by giselle-lx
Summary: One growing hybrid. Two immortal widowers. Three historic days. A future take on Carlisle and Edward's family from "For a Season."
1. 26 June 2013

**Author's Preface: **When I write, I carry my characters with me forever. They are always whole people to me—people I get to engage with briefly on the page, but who go on living their lives without me when I'm not there to write their adventures down for them. "For a Season" is still one of my favorite pieces of my own writing, and one of the ones of which I am the most proud. It stands alone—I meant to begin it where I began it, and I meant to end it where I ended it. But FaS takes place in 2007 and was written in 2011. As major changes have happened in the real world, I found myself wondering what happened in that fictional one. What Carlisle and Edward thought; how they reacted; who they had become in the intervening years. So while this is not a continuation of "Season" and as such is posted separately, it _is_ a continuation of my imagining of that AU incarnation of the Cullens—glimpses at the real events that have happened since I wrote it, and what they might have meant to such a uniquely situated family. If you don't recall FaS, you can go back and skim it, or you can let Carlisle remind you what happened in his own voice here.

_Addendum on June 15, 2020_: I originally envisioned this work as being three events, one chapter per event. But...other historic things may happen. In fact, hopefully other historic things _will _happen. And if so, I absolutely may check in with Carlisle and Edward to see how they're holding up in the moment. Stay tuned.

"Ordinary Time" is the term in the liturgical church tradition for the time between Epiphany and Lent, and then between Pentecost and Advent. The American Episcopal Church, which is the denomination I've always imagined Carlisle would feel most comfortable attending, began allowing the ordination of LGBT clergy in 2009, and went on to eliminate official language defining marriage as only between a man and a woman and introduce gender-neutral marriage rites in 2015.

Thanks to my dear friend **twitina** for prereading and not immediately declaring me bonkers for writing a fanfic about the Supreme Court.

**Ordinary Time**  
by giselle-lx

**26 June 2013**

The bathroom reeks with the astringent smell of hair dye, halfway between burned plastic and gasoline. I have it at my side on the bathroom counter, in a small disposable plastic tub. Gladware, this very strange invention, which to me, still seems incredibly wasteful even though I appreciate its utility. We can pour the dye, and then just lid the whole noxious thing and shove it back under the sink for a week or so from now when we'll need it again.

"You really should do a better job researching the bond structure of my hair," my son answers my thoughts. "Maybe you can devise a more permanent dye."

I chuckle. "You also could become slightly less addicted to long showers, Edward, and it wouldn't wash out as often."

He snorts.

"_That,_" he says playfully, "is not a sacrifice I am willing to make for you."

I smile and bend over him again. The teasing feels as comfortable as his thin body does between my thighs. As much as I joke about Edward's long showers, it is lovely to spend this time with him every ten days or so, my fingers carefully parting his hair, releasing that sweet scent that is so close to my own, and then combing just a few streaks of gray into the locks at his temples and the crown of his head. Sometimes, we do this when Rene is gone, and we take off our clothes "so that the dye won't stain anything."

Fictions. Dyeing Edward's hair is both literally and figuratively intoxicating, and the number of sheets we've ruined because we didn't manage to wait for Edward's hair to dry before hopping into bed…well. That's why we have Amazon Prime.

Today we are clothed, however, because Edward's daughter is downstairs, watching TV. Rene, pronounced like the bird, but with an extra 'e' as a nod to her grandmothers, is what we call her now. She favors her mother, but has the long shock of bronze hair she got from Edward, which she usually wears spilling over one shoulder. Two years ago, she was still experimenting—first the short, almost shaven style of her aunt, and two months later, a braid all the way down to her waist. But now we are hurtling toward her seventh birthday, and the swings in experimentation are growing less severe. My granddaughter, who has grown so quickly, is picking a hairstyle for forever.

She is the reason for the dye. As she has aged and we have not, our stories have needed to change. Edward suggested that he go back to baggy jeans and sweatshirts and pose as Rene's biological brother. I could tell people that I am a widower with two teenage children, he explained. But Rene and I immediately shot this down for different sides of the same reason: we both wanted to continue kissing Edward in public.

So instead, we've aged her father's appearance as much as we can. He poses as "thirty-five," and I am "thirty-seven," and while the gray is not strictly necessary, it takes the attention off his still-too-slender body and the youthful lines of his face. We tell people Rene is our adopted daughter whom we've had since she was taken away from Edward's sister as a baby. Yes, he was only nineteen then. Yes, we both had to grow up quickly. Yes, of course she cramped our style. No, we wouldn't have it any other way.

Rene and I kiss Edward as much as we want.

I'm combing back one of the sections of Edward's hair when we hear a shriek from downstairs. Edward leaps up, almost knocking the dye over, and I lay down the comb, not caring if it stains the counter. We are downstairs instantly, in the living room with the large LED TV that would not be my preference, but which Edward loves. Rene's heart is pounding so loudly we all can hear it. I had thought she was watching _How I Met Your Mother, _but she has on C-Span. The camera is on a young female reporter, standing in front of a white building with tall columns.

"It's _Windsor,_" Rene breathes. "We won."

I blink, and for a moment, it is as though my hearing has gone. We had read in the _Times _as the case snaked its way up through district and appeals. I had figured that the legality didn't matter. Esme and I were married for years in spirit before she was comfortable enough with her thirst to stand before a minister. And Edward and I _are _married under the laws of the State of New York. The other four visited us a year ago and sat politely in the pew in the small Manhattan courtroom as Rene bounced back and forth and the judge walked us through the simple vows. Even Emmett, for whose East Tennessee sensibilities this is all still a bit difficult, applauded us when we kissed.

My senses return to me within a second, and I see Edward, twisting his wedding band on his finger. We each wear both of them: the ring I shared with Esme is on my right hand, the one he shared with Bella, Edward wears on a short chain around his neck. I see it from the corner of my eye, glinting from the V of the neck of his t-shirt, as the reporter goes on reading from the decision.

"…_no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity. By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment._"

_Personhood and dignity. _The words cause my stomach to flip.

Fingers lace themselves in mine, and Edward strokes my arm, leaning into my body and placing his head on my shoulder.

"I didn't think it mattered to me, either," he says.

"Of course it matters," Rene says exasperatedly. "You are both so _dumb _sometimes." She stands from the couch and comes to us, placing her hand over where ours are clasped together, and my head is flooded with images. The three of us crammed into her double bed as Edward and I take turns reading from _Jane Eyre; _Rene feeling gleeful as she realizes Edward is rubbing his foot against my leg as I read. The two of us, standing on the sidelines at Chelsea Park after we moved to the city, discreetly holding hands as we cheered on her soccer team in the rain. Rene, running along the water at sunset on a private beach in Portugal, glancing back with approval at Edward and me, entwined on one chaise lounge as we watch.

They say that children are inclined to accept whatever reality they are presented with, and Rene has been no exception. She is born in the twenty-first century—this whole landscape is different for her. She's the one who acts like we're hopeless when we refer to two genders, and who throws around words like "demi" and "ace" and sends us scrambling to the internet to understand ourselves better. She calls us "Dad" and "Granddad" as though this is a customary arrangement, and when we asked if the constant reminder that, in some ways, I have never ceased being Edward's father, made things a bit too weird, she only shrugged.

We are all three immortal, she explained. Everything about this is too weird.

So we let it be weird. We bought a penthouse in Hell's Kitchen and took our daughter to Broadway shows after dark. We hung photos of Bella and Edward, and me and Esme, and I didn't always refrain from calling Edward "Son." We went to Madison Square Garden and reluctantly learned to root for the Knicks. On uncrowded days, we took Rene to the MoMA, and no one so much as batted an eye at yet another two men holding hands. Once, at Rene's insistence, we even went to New York Pride.

But mostly we kept to our own private desires. We learned to cook, now that there was someone who could eat. We cheered soccer games. We made love more often than any two people had right to. We lived in the unending agony of our perfect memories of our lost wives, and in the overwhelming joy of the presence of each other. We were used to keeping to ourselves, and having one more thing about which to keep quiet didn't seem that big an ask.

Like the vampirism, however, it has been something which feels, at its core, sinful.

On TV, the reporter is going on. "What this means, ultimately," she says, "is that the Supreme Court is affirming that in the United States, the law can no longer find anything wrong with who LGBT people are, nor with whom they desire."

Edward lets out a long exhalation—I hadn't realized he was holding his breath.

_I told you both that a long time ago. _

Rene is standing in front of us now, leaning against both our chests. Though touching me is sufficient—I never try to shield any thoughts from Edward any more, and he plunders my mind any time he is close enough to do so—she has always preferred to directly convey her thoughts to both of us at once, when she can.

"So you did," Edward mutters. He leans into me more forcefully, and his lips find their way to my collarbone. It's his favorite place to kiss—the scars there were inflicted by him, in his vampiric adolescent rage before he left me in 1927. We both recognize it as an affirmation of his apology, his return to me, and now, our vow not to part. I turn my face to his and our lips meet.

"Gross," Rene says. "But not because you're guys." She nods toward the screen. "Like, officially." She squeezes our hands again and is gone at once. We hear her bedroom door close softly, giving us privacy.

Edward sits on the back of the couch and pulls me closer.

"It is okay, Carlisle," he whispers, covering my lips with his again. "_This_…is okay."

"No," I mutter, my lips still pressed to his.

"This_,_" I tell him, "is _good_."

He laughs, grabs me by the buttocks, and we tumble onto the couch.

~x~

**Historical note: **_United States v. Windsor, _which was officially decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on 26 June 2013, struck down the core aspect of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that formally defined marriage as between one man and one woman, allowing federal entities to ignore same-sex partners in matters of things like insurance, social security, and taxes, and further allowing states to refuse to acknowledge same-sex marriages performed legally under the laws of a different state. In a 5-4 decision, the court found this law unconstitutional, as a "deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment."


	2. 26 June 2015

**26 June 2015**

Whatever it is that the bartender has put into Edward's glass turns purple when it is set on fire. The bartender himself looks a bit confused, but douses the fire with whatever it is he's concocted in his shaker, and at once, the martini glass begins to sweat. The cocktail itself is pink, and the barkeep adds two maraschino cherries before sliding it across the counter. He winks.

"That was some flame," I say to Edward. "How was it purple?"

"I spit in the glass when he wasn't looking."

I laugh and lean into him, placing my hand on his upper thigh. The bartender throws a disappointed glance in our direction.

"You are being territorial," Edward whispers.

"I am," I whisper back.

"It's kind of hot."

"I think so, too."

Behind us, twenty-first century pop music blares as people dance on the rooftop deck under the string lights. They are every gender and every realization thereof—women who look far more masculine and tough than I do, men in flamboyant drag, and everyone in between. Around us everything is rainbows, from the way the bottles of Smirnoff are arranged behind the bar, to the strobe light, to the clothing of so many of the people around us, and of course, the flags.

We have one too, now. Rene bought it for her room, but she slowly and surreptitiously moved it from her wall, to her door, to the kitchen. When Edward saw it, he just sighed and said, "Well, she's not queer, so I guess this does belong in our space…"

We hung it on the same wall in the foyer as our poster of Barack Obama.

I've not always been one for politics, and I certainly have not always been progressive, but partnering Edward and parenting Rene have changed so many things it makes my head spin. Rene voted for the first time in the midterms, and we kept Cuomo in office. We all follow the news much more closely than we ever have before. And that is why ten hours ago, Edward and I sat transfixed in front of my iMac, anxiously reloading SCOTUSBlog.

Two years ago today we hadn't been ready for how we would feel. Technically, these cases didn't matter for us, in material fact or in our hearts. We knew who we were. But this time, we were ready for the crush of emotion, and even though all the pundits had predicted it, and even though we felt in our bones the certainty of the tidal shift in public opinion, when the word REVERSED appeared on the screen, we clung to each other and wept.

Edward's phone rang two minutes later. "I refuse to allow you and G to be the only gay men in New York who somehow stay in tonight," his daughter informed him as soon as he picked up. "We will meet you at Terrace on 53rd at sundown."

"G" is my new name, a development from when Rene moved into the dorms at NYU last fall and increasingly had phone conversations that could be easily overheard. She still comes home for brunch on Sundays and I get to hear "Granddad" all I want then. We pointed out to her that I have a name and she could use it, but she's settled on "G" to remind us both every time we spoke that to her, I am never merely "Carlisle."

I couldn't argue with that.

That "we" who've insisted we all four meet at a gay bar, however, is much more complicated. I catch Edward's eyes searching across the crowd to where Rene is dancing close to a striking young man with short hair. His sleeveless shirt reveals the shoulder tattoo, and under the string lights, his earring glints. Edward deeply disapproves of both developments, but Rene likes them, so we are forced to go along with it.

Edward nods as he notices my thoughts. "So we're really doing this," he mutters.

I shrug. "Well, you know what they all said. Now that they're going to let us queers marry, we're just going to slide on down the slope to people marrying animals."

He rolls his eyes, and I grin.

"Too soon?"

"A hundred years from now would still be too soon."

As though they have heard us talking—which should be an impossibility, especially over the din—Rene grabs Jacob's hand and they make their way across the rooftop to us.

"Dance," she orders Edward.

"Drinking," he replies.

She gives him an exasperated look. "Can't."

He holds up the drink. "Yours?"

"Sure." She takes it from him, letting her hand brush his just long enough, I'm sure, to tell him whatever it is she means to. The one-word conversations are their game. Technically, they can communicate almost wordlessly, and so they challenge each other to have as long a conversation as they can manage without either uttering a phrase.

She swigs the drink. I am still getting used to this part. We agreed that it made the most sense to give her the freedom of paperwork that says she's 21. Nevertheless, when I see her slender wrist cocked just so as she holds a glass of wine, my heart lurches and I want my little girl back.

Edward gives me a knowing nod.

Rene hands the drink to Jake and grabs my hands. "Come dance."

"Should we really leave Jacob alone with your father?" I ask, as I allow myself to be dragged toward the throng.

"They are not going to tear each other apart on a rooftop deck in Midtown. Besides, that cocktail is strong. Pretty sure Dad will be able to take him."

I laugh. "I wonder if that was what he was thinking when he ordered it."

We slide onto the dance floor, and begin gyrating to the beat of the music. We dance for two pounding rock songs without saying anything other than to sing along with the lyrics, until the deejay switches to something a bit slower and she can catch her breath.

"How are things with Jake?" I ask finally.

"Going."

"Any new developments?"

I get the same eye roll Edward gave me only a few minutes ago, and I smile inwardly to myself at how alike they are.

"G, you will know when that happens." She touches my hand, and I see the embarrassment she is already anticipating the day that she has news that she knows there will be no way to hide from her father.

The laughter bubbles out of me before I have a chance to stop it. "I'm not asking if he's taken you to bed, Rene." Not to mention that I am every bit as mortified she is about the inevitable prospect of _knowing_.

It has been a little less than a year since we all four felt the seismic shift, as Facebook check-ins and friendly phone calls turned into hours-long Skype conversations that our daughter preferred to take in private. When finally the distance was obviously untenable, we helped Jake get an apartment in the Bowery. Edward, of course, would have preferred Flushing, or Staten Island, or truly, that Jake just stay on the other side of the country. But the apartment is a few blocks from Rene's dorm, and though her scent has been all over the place the handful of times we've been there, we try not to ask too many questions.

"I'm just wondering how you're feeling about it all these days, that's all."

She smiles a faraway smile. "Oh. It's good." A hand finds its way to my bare forearm, and I am treated to the two of them, laughing over coffee, poring over LPs at the record store off Washington Square Park, under a blanket watching _Orange is the New Black._

_It feels...comfortable. A lot like you and Dad._

I look back toward the bar. Edward and Jake are deep in conversation, and I wonder if it's the same one Rene and I are having on the dance floor. Edward looks up, locks eyes with me, and nods. Then he and Jake are standing and edging their way toward us.

"May I?" Edward says, and for a moment I am ready to move so that he can dance with Rene, but it's not her hand he's trying to take. Rene nods, and steps toward Jake, and Edward falls into my arms. We watch as Jake wraps his arms around Rene.

Edward sighs. "This still bugs me."

"And me also," I reply, "but he has matured, and we've raised her well."

He nods. "We have." He drapes his arms around my neck to dance, but the music fades, and is replaced by a clear male voice over the speakers, and it takes me a moment to realize what I am hearing.

_"Since the dawn of history, marriage has transformed strangers into relatives; this binds families and societies together, and it must be acknowledged that the opposite sex character of marriage, one man, one woman has long been viewed as essential to its very nature and purpose. And the Court's analysis and the opinion today begins with these millennia of human experience, but it does not end there. For the history of marriage is one of both continuity and change…_"

The whole rooftop falls silent for eight minutes as we listen, first to the history of homosexuality, to the history of the court, to the broad and narrow interpretations of the fourteenth amendment. By the time the recording of Justice Kennedy's announcement reaches its zenith, most of the people on the dance floor are already in tears.

_"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than they once were, and it would misunderstand petitioners to say that they disrespect or diminish the idea of marriage in these cases. Their plea is that they do respect it. They respect it so deeply they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and the Constitution grants them that right. For these reasons and others set out in the opinion, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed."_

A rowdy cheer goes up from the crowd. People clink glasses. Someone rings bells. Around us, couples fall into each other's arms. I've never been one for public displays of affection, and when we are even remotely less than chaste in public, it is usually Edward who is the instigator. But tonight, I take Edward's face in my hands, and pull him close enough that I can drink in his scent.

The country has traveled a long road, I think. Through hate. Through trouble. Through pain. And ours has mirrored it—my centuries of desolation, my elation in Esme and Edward, Edward's self-loathing, his rescue in Isabella Swan. The crushing loss of our wives. The perfect acceptance we've found in each other.

I show Edward the conversation I just had with Rene, and when she says her relationship feels like ours, he closes his eyes and nods.

_May their love be this complete_, I think to him.

And with our daughter, her partner, and what feels like an entire rooftop of people watching, I pull my husband's body to mine and drown in his kiss.

~x~

**Historical note:** The decision in _Obergefell v. Hodges_ was delivered on 26 June 2015, two years to the day after _Windsor_. The 5-4 finding, along the same split as _Windsor_, held that the "right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty." It immediately made same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states.

**Fic note**: Edward and Renesmee's one-word game is a bit of headcanon I plucked from "Mamihlapinatapai" by Writing Ficariously. I delight in getting to play the game a bit myself.


	3. 9 November 2016

**9 November 2016**

Alice calls to spoil surprises only when they are bad ones, and so both of us have been walking around like zombies since the first polls closed nine hours ago and she was finally able to see the outcome. We sit holding each other in shock, somehow unable to tear our eyes from the television as state after state is called. New York, of course, we knew. Massachusetts. But then slowly we watch them turn. Ohio. Michigan. Wisconsin. _Pennsylvania…_

Our daughter took our warning but insisted she could handle it, and promised that she would act just as stunned as everyone else at the watch party she was going to. But it is impossible not to be shaken, and neither of us is surprised when just after one AM, our phones buzz with an app notification that she's gotten in an Uber. Twenty-five minutes later, the tumbler in the front door lock turns and Rene stumbles in, her eyes red and swollen.

"_Dad_…" she wails.

Edward and I are to her almost before she's opened her mouth, our arms around her and around each other.

"Shhhhhhh," we are both saying. "It will be okay, sweetheart. It will be okay."

It occurs to me that we are telling this to ourselves.

She pulls away from us and jabs an open hand at the television. "How can you _say _that. He is a _monster._"

That she says this while breaking the hold of two vampires is not lost on me.

Edward and I exchange looks. _Do you want this one, or shall I? _

He nods solemnly. "Renesmee," he whispers. "Come. Sit with me." The next thing I know, they are stretched out on the chaise portion of our leather sectional, and Edward has his whole forearm against hers as they talk.

All I think to myself as I watch them is that we have been naïve.

She had been only seventeen months old, and physically about four, when the three of us made the weeklong road trip from Wisconsin to Washington at the end of a frigid January. We bundled in unnecessary layers, with hats and gloves and thick scarves. We put Rene on our shoulders and she shrieked and yelled and waved her little U.S. flag. Three among millions on an overcast day on the National Mall cheering a day I hadn't realized would come barely a century after the Civil War. Four years later, we would take the train from New York to hear him again, and when he called for the country to be guided by the principle that all of us are created equal, a chill shot down my spine when he added "Stonewall" to the places he pointed out that our forebears had trod in pursuit of equality.

Barack Obama has been president during our daughter's entire lifetime. And long after the other side's field narrowed to one, we kept jocularly debating the merits of Sanders versus Clinton, certain that it didn't matter. There was simply no way that our country would allow the other man to win. It had seemed impossible, and yet here we were watching it play out in bright red on CNN.

I was looking forward to the end of the campaign. The vitriol that was being spewed about people who didn't look the way others thought they should look, or love the way that others thought they should love, has been growing unbearable. Edward has taken to staying in the apartment most days, because even in our mostly ideologically homogeneous neighborhood, there are still too many thoughts he can't bear to hear. And even with the protection of our gender and race, we have both unconsciously become more careful about where and when we join hands.

What if it doesn't end?

"Oh my goodness not you, too," Edward says, exasperated. "You. Here. Also." I join them both on the couch. Rene does her level best not to touch me, but when she does I get glimpses of the wild directions her mind is racing. People jeering at us, at her. Calling us _faggots. _She's even seemed to have temporarily forgotten our immortality and is imagining us being hurt...

"Do you remember what you said to me, Carlisle, the night Dr. King was assassinated?" Edward asks.

Of course I do, but it takes me a moment to find exactly the memory he means. But I do bring it to full recall after a minute. I had walked Edward through every conflict I had witnessed in my lifetime—how Cromwell's rule ushered in the Second Civil War and the Irish Campaign. How the American Revolution laid the groundwork for the American Civil War. How Reconstruction lead to Jim Crow. How each time, it was as though the rubber band of progress snapped back, trying to hold its original shape. And as I remember telling Edward these things, I recall the line he wants me to repeat to his daughter:

"Hatred," we say together, "always attempts to fill any voids left carelessly by hope."

We have hoped and been careless. As the wheel seemed to turn inexorably toward these new things that mattered, we left behind a void. But, the rubber band always stays a little stretched, and I had explained this to Edward, too. And each time, it has a harder and harder time returning to it shape, until one day, it breaks.

"Yeah," Rene says, when I explain this. "But rubber bands fucking _hurt _when they snap."

We both wince at her choice of words.

"Right now, nothing has changed," Edward says gently, stroking her arm. "Not yet. And we live in New York. I'm not saying things can't go wrong"—he gestures helplessly to the TV, which we have muted—"but at least for now, it is okay here."

"And if we have to hide, we hide," I add. This is another thing she has not seen in her short lifetime. Her family has had their thirsts quite in check for decades. Rene has never been suddenly uprooted, a new identity thrust on her, a hop across the country or the globe in an attempt to be forgotten. "We have done it many times before."

"We could go to Europe," Edward says. "You've always wanted to live there."

"Just to visit, Dad," she says. "And I don't want to leave you."

"You _won't_," we both say forcefully. We share a knowing glance when we realize how alike we have responded. When Edward continues, it is more gently.

"You are going to have us forever, sweet," he says, stroking her hair. "And…I'm sort of sorry about that."

"Hashtag, sorry not sorry," she says, and there's the tiniest hint of a smile.

"Yes," he says, nudging the side of her face with his nose. "Not that sorry."

Emotional exhaustion is the only kind I can actually feel, and right now, I feel as though I could sleep for days. So when Rene doesn't answer right away, I'm not surprised to see her eyelids are drooping. Edward isn't finished suggesting that she spend the night before I have put fresh sheets on her bed. She points out that she has a nine AM class, and he reminds her that we, who do not sleep, are excellent alarm clocks.

"I suppose I should be grateful you haven't turned my bedroom into a sewing studio or something," she says, slowly lifting herself from the couch.

"Sweetheart, we're not _that _gay," Edward quips back.

An eye roll suffices for the fact that none of us is able to laugh just yet. Rene disappears, and a moment later returns in a t-shirt and pajama pants which she has stolen from Edward's closet, smelling strongly of spearmint toothpaste. In public, she is too old to kiss us, but we are alone in the apartment, and so she pecks each of us on the lips.

"Goodnight, Dad. Goodnight, Granddad."

Our answer is in unison. "Goodnight, Rene. We love you."

Her footsteps carry through the apartment, and as we listen, I don't need Edward's gift to know that he also is fighting the desire to follow her and tuck her in. She's an adult, now, even if it has happened far too quickly. But the act would feel comforting tonight. Securing our child. Reassuring her and ourselves that we are safe.

Instead Rene's comforter rustles as she nestles herself in bed, and we sit, stilled and silent, for twenty or so minutes until her breathing is deep and even.

"It's so easy to tell her that everything is going to be all right," Edward mutters, when we are sure she is asleep. "This is _not_ the world I want for her."

I know exactly what he means. We have brought our daughter up in love, but it has been no small struggle to get here ourselves. I remember the repulsion we both felt; the ways we hated ourselves and each other. The way we took external rejection and slowly, painfully, turned it into internal acceptance, and then buried that acceptance of ourselves while the outer world slowly caught up to us.

I hide so much of myself. So much of me is unpalatable and horrifying, and can only exist clandestinely. Having this one secret on public display has felt freeing, and faced with the fear of losing it, I realize how fervently I don't want to cram this part of me back into darkness.

"This wasn't what I was expecting to happen," I mutter.

"Which part?" Edward asks, a wry sarcasm in his voice. "Losing your wife who was supposed to be immortal? Raising a daughter? Being married to a man? Or just the election?"

He does have a way of putting things into perspective. I smile inwardly.

"Only you," I answer, kissing his head. "The election I obviously saw coming."

In reply, Edward leans into me and I wrap my arms around him. Our legs find each other's and intertwine, and he presses his lips to my neck.

"Less than two years from now, we will have been together for a century, Carlisle," he whispers. "That is downright monumental."

I think on this. I've been aware of the date approaching, of course, but something feels especially reassuring about it now. It might be a long journey to keep Rene's fears from coming to pass. But we've already been on a long journey. And we will continue on that journey together.

"Together," Edward mutters. "That sounds like a good idea."

I pull his head to my chest. Burying my nose in his hair, I inhale his calming scent, the spice that tells me that he's mine. He has always been my everything—brother, son, husband, best friend.

The muted TV is still reporting results, the news anchors' shocked faces moving their lips without sound. Our century-old grandfather clock, brought from Edward's home in Chicago, ticks in the foyer. My chest rises and falls against Edward's, and his rises and falls against mine as we curl against each other. In the distance, our daughter's breathing echoes calm and deep, and it is nearly ten minutes before Edward's voice breaches the silence:

"...should we maybe bite Justice Ginsburg, just in case?"

And suddenly, too early, still in the midst of worry and pain, we somehow find ourselves laughing.

~x~

**Historical note:** Donald J. Trump was elected 45th president of the United States on November 8, 2016. He subsequently placed two new conservative justices on the Supreme Court, appointing Justice Neil Gorsuch to the seat left by the death of Antonin Scalia in 2016, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the seat left by Anthony Kennedy's 2018 retirement. Kennedy was the author of the majority opinions on, and widely considered the deciding vote for, both the _Windsor_ and _Obergefell_ decisions.

What will happen if a challenge to _Obergefell_ reaches the currently sitting court is unknown.


	4. 15 June 2020

**15 June 2020**

I'm walking quickly for a human, my shoes squeaking against the floor when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I don't really need to see the ID, and I don't, in fact, check it, before my thumb instinctively taps the green circle which connects me to my daughter. Her face appears on the screen.

"I'm in the hallway," I say quickly, forestalling anything which she might say, though I probably don't need to. Over the last several months, she has grown to assume that both of us are at work any time she calls and is circumspect about the terms of address she uses.

"Is Dad there?"

"He's not with me, but unless he's not paying attention, he's already in my office."

I turn the corner and sure enough, Edward isn't exactly _in _my office, but he is leaning against the door, his lithe frame supported by the jamb. His feet are crossed at the ankles, and his mask hangs down from his neck over his scrubs. A wide smile breaks across his face as he sees me, and I turn the phone toward him so that he can see Rene. But he barely waves to her before taking the phone from my hand, pulling me into my office, and kicking the door closed.

His hands are in my hair before I have a chance to take a breath, and I yank off his scrub cap so that I can return the gesture, and then he's sitting on my desk and our tongues are in each other's mouths. And Edward is giggling, and pulling me between his legs, and we're probably only seconds in when the voice pipes up from my now-facedown iPhone.

"You know I still can _hear _you, right? Do you have a minute to stop swapping spit and look at the decision?"

Edward laughs and draws back, picking up the phone. He's grinning and so am I. We wave. Renesmee shakes her head exasperatedly, but she's smiling, too.

"That was a nice view of your desk I had there for a second before you completely cut me off, Granddad," she says. "It looks very expensive."

"I didn't do that to you, that was your father," I reply, and she laughs. It was Edward who texted us both what, ten minutes ago? Just one word:

_Affirmed!_

"So have you been online? Obviously we haven't had time."

"And I look like I've had time?" And we laugh, because she doesn't. Her hair is pulled up into a ponytail and the wild copper locks she inherited from her father show no sign of behaving. Her own surgical mask dangles around her neck, just like Edward's. I'm the only one of the three of us who looks remotely put together, although I'm fairly certain that my hair now bears witness to the assault of my husband's affection I've just experienced.

"Well, I can't check and talk to you at the same time," Rene goes on. "So that's on you, Dads."

Edward sits down at my computer and brings up a web browser. The hospital would lose their minds if they knew that Edward knows every password I have to everything, but then again, they would lose their minds even more thoroughly if they knew _why _he does. I set the phone in a cradle I keep at my desk for exactly this situation-I spend many an hour doing charts and chatting idly with either Edward or Rene as I work. I move behind Edward and place my hands on his shoulders as he types in the address of SCOTUS blog.

"Would you look at that?" he mutters. "Gorsuch wrote the majority. Six-three."

"Gorsuch?" Rene sounds as surprised as I feel. "I didn't see _that _coming."

"And Roberts went with the liberal justices also," I add, reading over Edward's shoulder as the liveblog scrolls by. "I thought for sure this would be four-five. I thought we'd be lucky to get five-four."

Edward is speaking aloud now, half reading and half adding commentary, and I rub his shoulders as he does. This is instinctual: our bodies never get tired, and our muscles never ache, but our nervous systems still recognize the feeling as pleasure. Esme often rubbed my shoulders when she came across me too engrossed in something, her way of being with me even when my mind was occupied. That it's now I who often rubs Edward's shoulders never escapes me.

"_If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact he is attracted to men, the employer discriminates against him for traits or actions it tolerates in his female colleague. Put differently, the employer intentionally singles out an employee to fire based in part on the employee's sex, and the affected employee's sex is a but-for cause of his discharge. Or take an employer who fires a transgender person who was identified as a male at birth but who now identifies as a female. If the employer retains an otherwise identical employee who was identified as female at birth, the employer intentionally penalizes a person identified as male at birth for traits or actions that it tolerates in an employee identified as female at birth_," Edward reads aloud. He turns to me. "Did Neil Gorsuch just use the phrase 'identified as female at birth'?"

"He has a woke clerk who wrote that," Rene replies, "and besides, it's 'assigned.'"

"Most likely," Edward continues distractedly, "but nevertheless. Inclusionary language is not what I'd expect from him."

A term like "inclusionary language" isn't something I would've expected from Edward, either, even ten years ago. And yet it's been what-four days?-since he was talking Renesmee out of burning her Harry Potter books. "TERF" wasn't a word we knew three years ago either.

Edward chuckles.

"What?" Rene asks.

"Oh, nothing, Carlisle is just accusing me of being old-fashioned." He gazes up at me, smirking, and I lean over him again and our lips touch, more gently this time. When I glance over to my phone, Rene has her eyes covered.

"You can look, Monster," I tell her. "We're not going to get up to anything you shouldn't see in my office."

"Not right _now, _you're not."

"Oh stop watching _Grey's Anatomy,_" Edward shoots back. "We've never had sex in this office."

I can't help beginning to laugh. "What?" he replies.

"Okay, Bill Clinton. I see we're taking the narrow reading today." I poke him in the chest.

He looks down sheepishly and smirks.

From the phone, Renesmee's eyes are half closed in a suspicious gaze. "Why do I not fully understand that reference and why do I have a feeling I shouldn't look it up?"

"Because it was before you were born and because you absolutely shouldn't look it up," Edward answers, but he's begun to laugh also."Speaking of people whose sex lives we are absolutely not discussing, how _is _Jacob?"

"Oh he's fine." The gentle smile creeps across Rene's face again. There was a time, many years ago, when Edward and I both worried and hoped that somehow, the imprint would break, or that she wouldn't reciprocate, or any of a myriad other things that would forestall what to us, felt like denying our daughter a very important choice. But when she talks about him, every line of her face softens, and her eyes go alight, and I can't help but feel foolish for ever hoping otherwise.

We call him our son-in-law even though they haven't married yet. Rene is posing as twenty-four, ten years older than she is in body, and almost none of her women classmates in med school are married at this age. Not to mention that at least for the next year, it would look incredibly strange if a large crowd of us gathered for their wedding, no matter how immortal we know ourselves to be.

"He's joking about moving into CHAZ," she goes on. "I'm not entirely certain he's not being serious. I mean, I'm not happy with the United States right now, but we do have plumbing."

"Please don't move into CHAZ." This is me. Rene and Jake live in downtown Seattle, not far from the six-block protest-turned-commune-turned-protest. They posted photos on Instagram a few days ago of a burned-out bodega where we had all gone shopping the last time Edward and I visited. Rene is all but invincible, and so is Jake, but that didn't stop me from pacing our apartment for three hours straight when she and Jake attended a protest march until I received the text that said "_Back in the apartment!" _accompanied by a cheerful selfie of them, side by side in face masks, Rene in her "Nevertheless She Persisted" shirt and Jake in black tee emblazoned with NATIVES 4 BLACK LIVES.

"Granddad, I'm joking. He's joking. Stop worrying."

Edward smiles gently. "Sweet, he worries because he loves you. Let him be."

It was Edward who reminded me that it had been my idea to take the entire family to the March on Washington in 1963. We stood and listened to impassioned speeches, none more so than by Dr. King, and I considered myself having come a long way from my father's teachings about the mark of Cain. So when I hesitated a week ago about whether to go to the Manhattan Bridge, Edward ribbed me a little bit as he penned NO JUSTICE NO PEACE on a large piece of cardboard. Rene, upon hearing later that day of my hesitation about participating in something which could end in violence, offered to write _Vampire Fragility_ just for me.

But in the end I went. We sent Jake and Rene our own selfie, Edward with his sign, and me with one which said simply BLACK LIVES MATTER, which still feels like a small, personal transgressive revolution.

We don't own protest-appropriate t-shirts.

"Just be careful," I manage. "Please."

She gives me a small smile. "I'm being careful, Granddad. Very. And while it's unbelievably annoying, it's kind of sweet that you still worry so much." She pushes a lock of hair out of her face. "I think Jake is just bored and worried about not being able to go home. Billy is fine, the rest of the tribe is fine, there have been 30 COVID cases in Clallam. But they closed the Rez and even though he obviously could pull rank, he isn't. He's feeling disempowered and so he's taking power where he can get it."

"We're sorry we can't be out there with you," Edward says, and the understatement is evident, at least to me.

Rene shakes her head. "You are right where you need to be. New York needed you. Besides, 24-hour shifts in the middle of a pandemic must feel...nostalgic or something." She grins the same devious grin her mother had when she was trying to get Edward to do something.

I run a hand through Edward's hair. "It does bring back memories, that's for sure." Edward swivels in my chair and gazes up at me, a small smile playing on his lips. I drape my arms over his skinny shoulders and rest my chin on them, gazing at the phone.

"So six blocks of my neighborhood have seceded from the country, my dads are out marching against the cops, and Neil Gorsuch is using trans-affirming language. 2020 is a very confusing year."

We all three laugh. "It really, really is," Edward says, and it feels good to be like this. Happy, temporarily, at least. Talking with our daughter like she's here in the room, instead of on the other side of the country. Like we're at home in midtown instead of on the sixteenth hour of a mercifully-aligned shift at Mt. Sinai.

Even though it was technically only our eleventh year of being partnered and our sixth year of marriage, Edward and I celebrated our century anniversary two years ago, with all of our family and cousins at their huge estate in Alaska. It was a multi-day party, complete with Alice's overzealous decorating and programming. We didn't hold back the revelry. We danced for hours. We told stories that went back hundreds and thousands of years. We introduced Emmett to RuPaul and he actually enjoyed it. A year later, he introduced us to Todrick.

And maybe that's why this year feels manageable. Edward and I have always held these things in tension. Joy and sorrow, health and sickness, life and death. We aren't the husbands we are without the wives we lost. We aren't the fathers we are without Rene not having her mother. The world seems upended right now, and yet...I've been living in an upended world for nearly three hundred eighty years.

I'm made aware I've gone silent only when Rene asks, "Granddad?"

Edward looks up at me. "He's just having deep thoughts."

"I should've known." She looks over her shoulder. "Look, I should go. We have rounds. I just wanted to be able to look this over with you the moment it happened. We can talk more later."

I haven't gotten used yet to hearing her talking about going on rounds, but she's right, it's only just after seven AM in Washington, and I notice that her eyes look a little tired. But her white coat makes her look in control, and she projects the confidence of a woman at the top of her class. I feel proud.

"You're wearing more PPE than that, right?" Edward asks.

She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Dad. I just got to work."  
"Rene, it's just that-"

"I _know_." Her voice is exasperated again, but her smile is wide. "My respiratory system is the most human part of me; I've gotten colds from other coronaviruses; we shouldn't make assumptions, yadda yadda yadda. Dad. Granddad. We _all _have to act like we're just normal. So I'm acting like I'm normal. It's fine."

"Okay." The sigh is long. "Go to work. We love you, sweet."

"Love you, Rene," I add.

"I love you both. Congratulations on another important day."

And then the phone is abruptly back on my homescreen, and the office is quiet. For a moment, neither of us says anything, and I hop up onto the desk. I don't need to sit, but I've been practicing human habits so long it is second nature when I've been standing longer than a human would. Edward stands and comes between my legs, and soon we have reversed our earlier embrace.

"Six-three," he mutters.

"I'm six-two," I joke, "and so are you." Our bodies fit perfectly in that regard. He is lankier than I am, and my legs are slightly longer, but when we lie together in bed or in front of the fireplace, it is easy for us to become one set of body parts, for a back to meet a chest and ankles to twine between legs.

He rolls his eyes. "You're impossible. And you're going to have to hold the thought of all that skin until we get home tonight because our daughter isn't the only one who has rounds."

I sigh. He's not wrong; I have a 10:45 consult myself. I hop off the desk and for a moment we _are _body to body, from head to toe. Edward kisses my neck and then pulls away from me.

"We haven't talked about what we're going to do for your birthday this weekend," I say as he stuffs his dirty surgical cap into his pocket. "It's already Monday."

He shrugs. "I figured we'd spend it together somehow. That's enough."

"After almost a hundred days of stay at home orders, you aren't tired of spending time with me?"

He has taken a few steps away from me, but he turns and cocks his head, smiling with only half his mouth. It's both alluring and sweet.

"Carlisle," he says, "I will never be tired of spending time with you." He holds his hand out to me, and I take it, and then we are through the door and into the hallway.

We aren't in anyone's face about our marriage, but when we joined the staff four months ago, we didn't hide it either. Yet it still feels a bit surreal to do even just this in the hallway of my place of employment, holding hands with a man I've pledged so much more than my life to. But it feels good, too.

Hearing my thoughts, Edward squeezes my hand. "What're they gonna do, fire us?" he whispers.

"Didn't you hear?" I whisper back, smiling. "They can't."

We hold hands until we reach the end of the hallway and go our separate ways.

~x~

**Historical Note:**

The decision in _Bostock v. Clayton County_ was handed down on June 15, 2020. In a ruling which, surprising to most Americans, was decided 6-3, conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch held that the language of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—regardless of the intent of its drafters—means that "an employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids." The decision made it illegal to fire an employee on grounds of LGBTQ+ identity.

The decision was handed down amidst great unrest in the United States, including the continued threat of the global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and increased violence against protestors advocating for massive reform of American policing in the wake of the death by suffocation of George Floyd, an African American man, at the hands of four Minneapolis police officers who were attempting to arrest him for a forged check.


End file.
